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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

First thing's first: Why panic? If your immune system can handle the varied strains of human flu, you should be at the very back of the panic line. If your age and/or overall health puts you "at risk," take a bit more precaution than you usually do for the yearly flu bug or the common cold.

In any case, if you're healthy, try not to get sick, wash your hands, keep clean, eat well, sleep well, and laugh well.

If you're sick (likely with a cold but possibly with the swine flu), try not to spread the illness, stay home, rest, drink lots of fluid like water and hot soup, cover your mouth when you sneeze and cough, take a pain killer if it hurts, take some cough syrup for a sore throat, take some pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) if you can't breathe through your nose, see a doctor if it is urgent, and laugh well.

Most of all, don't let the paranoid propaganda of the evening news spook you. Sure, parts of Mexico - where the pandemic hit first and so far hardest - look like the middle of a modern zombie movie. Sure, the medical experts caution that the pandemic may turn deadly in the States, and elsewhere, as it has done to Mexico. Sure, if you get a sore throat sometime soon, your first thought might be of the swine flu.

Just don't worry; take care of yourself; take care of those for whom you care; remember to laugh. I'm not going to say that laughter is the best medicine, but it does keep an even worse epidemic - the zombie flu - at bay.